]]>By: TheWulfhttp://www.vg247.com/2012/07/05/the-secret-worlds-first-hours-on-mystery-and-thrills/comment-page-1/#comment-387255
Thu, 05 Jul 2012 22:27:52 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=274775#comment-387255Also, Pat… come on. You know TSW has a level as well as I do, it’s just not explicitly explained as a level. It’s a level that’s obfuscated.

Area A: The monsters in this area are easy, you need only two skills to do well.
Area B: The monsters in this area are harder, you’d need at least five skills to do well.
Area C: The monsters in this area are much harder, you’d need a good variety of skills to do well.
Area D: If you don’t have the right skills and powered up in the right way, the monsters here will slaughter you.

Area A: Level 1
Area B: Level 5
Area C: Level 20
Area D: Level 50

It might not implicitly state a level, but there is one there. It’s measured instead though but the amount of skills you have and how powered up they are. It’s just that you get those skills and upgrades more intermittently (Guild Wars 2 also does this with its skill unlocks and weapons) instead of it being linked into a level.

But the level-gating is still present on TSW’s content. It’s painfully obvious that level-gating is there. Just because it isn’t called a level, doesn’t mean that there isn’t a level system in place there. A level basically means X Amount of Power, and that philosophy is firmly in place in TSW.

If you want an example of a game without level-gating, look at Ultima Online or Minecraft. In those games if you’re careful you can go wherever you want. This is absolutely not true about The Secret World. It’s just a really pretty con, it’s a clever con that people want to believe.

But levels and level-gating are alive and well in TSW. Obfuscation thereof is irrelevant.

And what makes it worse is that it’s going to hard for people to group up since you can’t explicitly say what level an area is, you can only try and compare what skills a person has and how powered up they are. People are going to get sick of that fast.

Champions Online is a marvel of a game (heh), and it’s really enjoyable. I loved the customisation, I truly enjoyed being my own hero, but what plagued it was that they didn’t have enough variety in the content. And what variety they did have wasn’t easily repeatable, so you’d blow through these fun bits and then you’d be left with the grind. And that was playing it casually.

I still love Champions Online, don’t get me wrong. I’d recommend it to anyone wanting to try an MMORPG because it’s a brilliant game, and in a lot of ways it’s almost GW2. It’s clever, it’s thoughtful, and it has a lot going for it. But ultimately the way they designed it, so akin to traditional MMORPGs, is what doomed it.

What had the potential to save Champions Online came too late.

They added adventure packs and comic series. The first one, the Serpent Lantern, was terribad. I’ll admit that. But the rest of them? Demonflare, Resistance, and the comic series? Brilliant! Brilliant! Now… what would have saved Champions Online? If the whole game had been like those adventure packs and comic series.

But they understood that too late. Maybe Champions Online 2 will…

Who knows.

But what makes a game enjoyable is if you have content that one or more people can enjoy with as small amount of drama and mechanics overhead as possible, and you want to let them enjoy this content whenever. This is why Guild Wars 2 works, and this is why it’s basically CO++. It’s Champions Online done right.

The events, both renown (heart) and dynamic are clever.

They’re clever because you’re not playing the UI. You don’t need to group with people, you don’t need armchair generals, you don’t need drama. You can just hop into this crazy shit as it’s happening. See people invading a town? You can jump in to help stop that, and you can even fail.

How is this relevant? You can play whatever events whenever you want.

Levels don’t matter. You get rewarded according to your current level, anyway, and numbers don’t matter because your power is matched to the content you’re doing. So whether you win or lose is very much an element of your skill. A level 80 character could fail at a level 10 event.

So if you get bored of doing events in areas which are designated as level 80, you can go and do events which are designated as level 10. You’ll get rewarded for it in ways which are very relevant to you as well.

In this way, the entire game is end-game.

It’s clever, really clever. Let’s say that there’s this event you liked playing as a level 40 character, yeah? You can go back and play that event at level 60 and have a blast with it until you’re done with that, and you can do that without anything getting screwed up. And you receive the same level of challenge at level 60 that you did at level 40.

Now, the adventure packs and comic series of Champions Online also scaled like this, but they were instanced. Which is a damned shame.

Guild Wars 2 is like an entire game of CO’s comic series and adventure packs, except set in the open world where everyone who’s in the area can take part in them and be rewarded for them in meaningful ways. It takes the good ideas of Champions Online and builds upon them, and it fixes them, and builds the entire game upon the basis of good ideas.

The problem with a game like TSW is that it’s traditional. You’ll blow through the good content, and people will get in your way and annoy you when you’re trying to do that (adventure games are usually very personal experiences), then you’ll pass all that content and what’s left to you?

You grind. You grind. You grind. You grind some more. Because all you have left is the combat.

I want to see more games being clever like GW2, where people are encouraged to play together, but where the older content of the game never becomes irrelevant. Guild Wars 2 is end-game, all of it is end-game. It’s end-game from level 1 to level 80, it’s designed that way. That’s why GW2 wins. CO came so damned close but it didn’t get enough right. GW2 does. If GW2 becomes the new MMORPG standard, I will be very happy.

]]>By: Kabbyhttp://www.vg247.com/2012/07/05/the-secret-worlds-first-hours-on-mystery-and-thrills/comment-page-1/#comment-387168
Thu, 05 Jul 2012 16:09:01 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=274775#comment-387168Doesn’t interest me and seems clunky in everything it does. I await your follow-up article in 3 months time.
]]>By: GwynbleiddiuMhttp://www.vg247.com/2012/07/05/the-secret-worlds-first-hours-on-mystery-and-thrills/comment-page-1/#comment-387156
Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:38:13 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=274775#comment-387156@8 Well TBH I don’t think it’ll last long. I don’t wish em ill but I think eventually people will start to want more rewarding experience, more stuff to do and when those demands aren’t met with proper content things will start to fall apart. TSW doesn’t even have a proper FAQ on their website yet, there are no alternative payment options like game cards as far as I know cause when I’m going to play a p2p mmo I need that option as I don’t have credit card or paypal due to international sanctions. So I think they wont last long based on my personal experience and I played a lot of different MMOs in the past including both Champions and AoC from Funcom.
]]>By: Phoenixblighthttp://www.vg247.com/2012/07/05/the-secret-worlds-first-hours-on-mystery-and-thrills/comment-page-1/#comment-387155
Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:37:53 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=274775#comment-387155What I find fun in Secret World is the investigations and fantastic environments. I would just get to high level just so I could explore all areas but I won’t pay a sub just for those two things.
]]>By: Patrick Garratthttp://www.vg247.com/2012/07/05/the-secret-worlds-first-hours-on-mystery-and-thrills/comment-page-1/#comment-387150
Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:20:13 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=274775#comment-387150@6 – Yeah, I will. Brenna’s keen on it, so I think we’ll be playing it a bit internally. I’m definitely interested in seeing how long it’ll keep me going for.
]]>By: DSBhttp://www.vg247.com/2012/07/05/the-secret-worlds-first-hours-on-mystery-and-thrills/comment-page-1/#comment-387143
Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:07:53 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=274775#comment-387143@5 Yeah you did, and it did make you go through trainers and all that, but it had the same kind of freedom that you do in The Secret World. If you wanted to be all guns and magic, you could.

But just like The Secret World, the degree to which the game rewarded it was very shoddy.

It’s not a bad MMO, but I just think it takes more than a decent one to really make a mark these days. It is a big step up from Conan on Funcoms part, but I don’t see how it will make people run from the MMOs with more solid dungeons and endgame.

You should do a follow up once you max out. I think that’s really the kicker when it comes to MMOs.

]]>By: Patrick Garratthttp://www.vg247.com/2012/07/05/the-secret-worlds-first-hours-on-mystery-and-thrills/comment-page-1/#comment-387141
Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:02:09 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=274775#comment-387141@4 – I did play Champions. Did you not have a level in that? I bounced off it, to be honest. TSW’s loads better.

I didn’t play Conan, because I was fantasied out. I’ve just moved on to the second TSW area. We’ll see if there’s enough there to keep things interesting soon enough, I guess.

It definitely is a lot of fun. The story could go on forever, assuming there’s enough interest. I’m crossing my fingers, but I’m really enjoying it at the moment.

Champions had much the same system for levelling (somewhat clunkier with trainers etc. but still very free) and Conan was ultimately quite a pretty game as well, but it didn’t do them a whole lot of good, because ultimately they didn’t have proper endgame.

There’s very little to distinguish The Secret World from those two, especially Champions, based on what I played during the beta.

I think the thrill you’re talking about is a very basic one, that probably only counts if you haven’t played those other ones, which I think a great deal of the core MMO audience will have.

And ultimately it doesn’t last. I really liked that Champions was more actiony and scripted with guns and spells and all kinds of craziness, but ultimately there wasn’t a lot to really use it on besides the grind, just like there isn’t in The Secret World.

A successful MMO isn’t about the short term, it’s about the long term, and while I haven’t played The Secret World for very long, I didn’t see any indication that it had much beyond the grind.

]]>By: brento73http://www.vg247.com/2012/07/05/the-secret-worlds-first-hours-on-mystery-and-thrills/comment-page-1/#comment-387135
Thu, 05 Jul 2012 14:51:26 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=274775#comment-387135Although I don’t have the free time of money to pick it up at launch, I did get the chance to get in on some beta events, and I think the game is pretty cool. Although I experienced some bugs and issues, and the grouping isn’t as easy as I’d like(as mentioned above), the game world feels unique amid the sea of Tolkien-inspired fantasy games. I can only think of a few MMORPGs that didn’t have a setting similar to EverQuest(or Ulitma Online before that), and those haven’t done real well. Given that one non-fantasy game that started off a bit rocky, but went on to stick around for the long-haul was Funcom’s own Anarchy Online, I have high hopes for TSW. Since I’d really love to play it down the road, I REALLY want it to be a hit.
]]>By: Patrick Garratthttp://www.vg247.com/2012/07/05/the-secret-worlds-first-hours-on-mystery-and-thrills/comment-page-1/#comment-387053
Thu, 05 Jul 2012 09:50:08 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=274775#comment-387053It’s a lot of fun. The setting’s brilliant.
]]>By: BULArmyhttp://www.vg247.com/2012/07/05/the-secret-worlds-first-hours-on-mystery-and-thrills/comment-page-1/#comment-387042
Thu, 05 Jul 2012 09:05:34 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=274775#comment-387042I am getting my copy today, but maybe will be able to play first on Sunday. I have huge hopes, as I had with AoC(in my view the only MMO close to disturbing WoW). AoC had a lot of problems with middle to late game content, as with the bugs and that killed it, but still is one of the different MMOs. I hope Funcom solved those problems, because I am sick of all the generic fantasy MMO setings, the concept here is absolutely amazing.
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